Thank you, Mom, for giving birth to me. Wait, back up. For carrying me around for nine months and two weeks THEN giving birth to me. I’ve got some additional perspective on that birth part, thanks to some new mommy friends of mine (hi, ladies!). Oh, and Mom… They couldn’t walk properly for a long time after having their kids, and their kids arrived basically on time. For you folks following along at home, I was TWO weeks late. Mom, I don’t know how you were able to take care of me after enduring my birth, and in the absence of any logical explanation I’ve decided that you can levitate or you have go-go-gadget arms.

Fast forward in time to the rock and the yellow Porsche 914 incident. You know, when I thought the car was a chalkboard and all… I’ve told that story a few times and it’s generally met with awe because 1) I wasn’t murdered in the driveway that day and my body buried in the New Mexico high desert, and 2) I didn’t get into trouble because you recognized that I didn’t know drawing on the Porsche with a rock was a BAD thing. Seriously, the reaction I get is “you have amazing parents”. Mom, you have a kind of patience and humor that is rare.

And then we have all those times you drove me to the orthodontist, which was a five-hour round-trip trek. And all those times you let me stay home from school and goof off. And the Green Day concert (my first show!) you took me to. And you put up with me during my whiny teenage years and put up with me when I had stupid socially inept boyfriends and put up with me when I moved to the other side of the country. Through it all–through your example–you taught me to have adventures and to love unconditionally. To have fun.

Being a kid with you, being a grown-up with you, is fun. Let’s keep it up, through the next adventure. And the next. And the next…

I love you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.

I got the most ridiculous letter in the mail on Monday. The author was a doctor whose care I came under last summer (2008, to be clear). She said she hoped the letter found me well. She informed me that due to 60 days of inactivity, she was closing my file. At first I was dismissive, ridiculing the correspondence because I’d actually been inactive for over 6 months and the bitch was LATE. But, the more I made fun of it, the more I thought about what it meant. My file was closed. It was CLOSED. And that stupid piece of paper morphed into a certificate of accomplishment. This morning I dug out my emergency stash of medication and threw it all away.

Thanksgiving. That’s today. We’re excited about it. That’s the royal “we”, man. A lot of people aren’t, though. There’s a certain dread a lot of folks feel around the holidays. I know because I talk to a lot of people and most of them have horror stories ready for the sharing. On the surface, folks spin yarns to entertain, but it’s all deeply rooted in emotions and personal truths. We laugh, wave a hand and utter cheerful exclamations. Then we sigh and think while we sip our beverage, waiting for someone else to tell a chuckler. And we’ve all got ‘em. But that’s not the important part of this paragraph. The important part is the thinking.

In between the stories and the laughs I’ll think about that letter; about the journey to which that letter vaguely refers, and to the ending that it signifies. And I will be thankful for it, among many, many other things.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

It will take every remaining bit of 2009 to recap the year. There’s 1/6th of it left, I know. If I wait until 2010 then I’ll get behind on recapping THAT year. And lookit: I’m not exactly on top of this stuff. Slow, even. I offer my last blog post, written two months ago, as Exhibit A. Bailiff, please add it to the list of evidence. Who’s that shouting at me from the back of the courtroom? You! You there! Kiss m–

A guy just sat down next to me at Barista. He spoke to me, then looked at my wedding ring. He’s not talking to me anymore.

Yeah, I know. This is shaping up to be disjointed and distracted. I like shiny things.

I’m not going to talk about 2009 in any particular order, because that would require cross-referencing. I don’t have a whole lot of spare time. The reason why I get to sit, sipping a latte, anywhere besides my office at 3pm is because I went to work at 7am. And I didn’t take a lunch break.

There are ZERO shrieking babies at work. There are two of them here. You can’t exactly teach a brand new baby the meaning of quiet, and these babies aren’t screaming because they’re mad.

It’s all swirling around now. The events, the fights, the joys, the losses and gains. So much to say and a lot that needs to be left alone. This isn’t the place to air out the laundry soaked with stinky drama–I want to celebrate the year of massive change and thank the people who rode shotgun through it with me.

Mounted police just trotted by. In 2009 I decided that I would never name my child after a month, a city, or a deity. However, it’s completely okay to give an animal a human name. I wonder what police name their horses?

When I went back to work in January, I was ready. So ready. I wanted an office chair and a computer with a big monitor and good benefits. What came with those items I couldn’t have known to request. I got a big fat lesson in what it means to take care of myself. And I learned a lot about what this “self” thing is.

Look, a story!

Previously, I worked retail. To be good at retail, you have to be what the customer in front of you needs you to be. Doing that for three years, I gradually came to believe that it was my job to be everyone’s mother. When I got back into the office environment I frustrated myself to tears over the fact that no one was taking care of ME as much as I felt I should take care of them. Inside, I pouted, “Don’t I deserve to be treated the way I am treating YOU?”

Then, one of my genius coworkers told me to sit down at a picnic.

“You must expect great things of great people. When you do not treat them like great people, you send the message that you believe they are mediocre people. Are they mediocre people? If not, why do you feel you need to do so much for them?”

YES. Great. People. Don’t. Need. Me. To. Stress. Over. What. I. Perceive. To. Be. Their. Every. Need.

Perceive is the key word there. I was addicted to people relying on me. Stuck on the feeling that they might roll over and DIE without me. Who will remember that ONE thing or BE there to help with that OTHER thing? If not me, then I’ve failed miserably! MUST be me. It can ONLY be me.

Thanks to my genius coworker, in 2009 I became a recovering coddler. In 2009 I stopped expecting to be coddled back. So much pressure lifted. And I got a good start at being a better–GREAT, even–person. Who doesn’t need every little need taken care of, because I’m not mediocre. And who now can trust that other people can be great on their OWN. It took me how many years to realize that? Bailiff, there’s Exhibit B.

Saturn is coming back for me.

I’m the sum of consecutive integers.

For the next three and a half months I’ll be two years older than my sister.

It’s my birthday today.

Since my father turned 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+5 I’ve been asking the birthday boys and girls to share the most valuable piece of knowledge they’ve gained so far in their life. The idea is that every year their insights will change. I’ll never forget Dad’s first answer: “I would have taken better care of my teeth,” he said. Because of that, he gets partial credit for the fact that I’ve managed to keep two baby teeth up to this point. And, for the record, Dad has very nice looking teeth.

So, you know what’s coming now. Here are my words of wisdom for the world:

“The answer is inside you.”

And here’s the obligatory explanation:

People will try to give you advice because they care about you, because they want you to make a good decision, because they are invested in that which you are deciding upon, because they want to lighten your load or speed you up, because it’s what we all are inclined to do when we notice that a person is stuck. But! If you are in the habit of receiving advice and then spending a lot of energy trying to align yourself with it, you aren’t giving your own smart self a chance to have a say. And! It’s pretty likely that you won’t be “bought in” to your own decision because you weren’t the original author, as it were. So before you act, slow way down and look inside yourself. Believe that no matter how confused, naive, taken aback or freaked out you feel, there is an answer in there. Sure, listen to what others have to say, as their thoughts might help guide your search. Try hard! Commit to seek and work until you reach bedrock or fall over from exhaustion. If you don’t give up, you will find the best answer of all inside your naturally creative, resourceful and whole self.

Here’s to another trip around the sun.

I’m not a licensed hair person. At one point I thought I wanted to become one, but that didn’t pan out. Not to go on a rant about Aveda, but having my product sales numbers read out loud to the class wasn’t the kind of beauty school for which I thought I’d signed up. Nope. I did sales at The Container Store. Hell, I taught people how to sell at The Container Store. Why the eff would I want to be Aveda’s product pushing corporate pawn when all I wanted to do was learn how to cut hair really, really well?

And no, the Aveda Institute’s stupid sales stuff didn’t run me out of beauty school. You see, I’m grateful for learning that hair is really about products. I now can do some cool stuff with pomade and hair spray. But! I didn’t want to pervert my purpose, which was only about the art of giving a good hair cut. Being “just a good hair cutter” won’t sustain you in the beauty business, though. No, it’s product sales. And up-selling. That deep penetrating hair treatment that costs $120 in the salon? It will wash out in 48 hours and you’ll be back to looking like a frizzy mess. Worse yet? You’ll feel disappointed and misled. Take it from me: You’ll get greater satisfaction out of that money if you book yourself an amazing massage with a huge-handed guy named Sven.

I couldn’t keep lying to people in order to make money off of them. It’s wrong. I had to get out of hair sales before I ended up like Willy Loman. Worrying about what people thought of me and having to constantly watch my back was literally driving me crazy.

After about three months I withdrew from the Aveda Institute/Aveda Product Sales Machine and had myself a good old-fashioned summer vacation (those of you who know me personally are probably saying, “Whew!” because there is truth here that I am withholding because the Internet doesn’t get to know everything about my life). Thought I’d sworn off hair. Truly, I swore off sales.

When I go back and read the journal I kept during that period of time I see a lot of conflict between giving a good haircut and asking for money. I walked all over town and sweated and drank coffee and read books and contemplated selling my hair-doing kit. People, I have a golden curling iron. It’s ridiculous. I looked at it for weeks and said to myself, “Hair is so stupid. Look at this impressively shiny, yet poorly functioning piece of equipment.” That thing embodied everything I hated about hair school. It merely looked expensive. And I said to myself on a long walk from from NW 20th and Flanders to SE 50th and Hawthorne, “The only way I can do hair for people is if I don’t take money.” It was a breakthrough. A hot, caffeine-charged realization that freed me to pick up the scissors again.

“That’s right,” I thought, “I don’t want to do hair because I want to swim in cash. I want to do hair because it’s fun for me and helps people feel good about themselves.”

It’s all or nothing. I don’t want to ask for just a few bucks for a haircut, let alone a lot of bucks. When you put a dollar amount on something, an expectation is set. Nobody goes to Rudy’s expecting the most fantastic razored haircut ever. Why? Because Rudy’s is cheap and the people who work there want you cut, styled and paid up in as little time as possible. On the flipside, when you pay $80 for a smashing new style you expect better than smashing. You kinda hope that new ‘do will get you laid. In Nyco’s One-Woman Unlicensed Salon? I’m just honored that you asked me to do your hair. That’s it. If you want to make me cookies, cool. Otherwise, thanks for letting me do what I love, and do it for you.

Meet Charlie Browne.

The “e” at the end is for femininity. Or something.

Stats:
Gender: Female
Breed: German Shorthaired Pointer/Laborador Retriever
Height: 22″ at the shoulder
Weight: 46 lbs
Age: 8 yrs

As of Memorial Day weekend she still called a second-chance dog shelter, Family Dogs New Life, home. We saw her on their website and immediately went to meet her. Back then she was called Marley. The place was hoppin’ and I was nervous that she’d already been snatched up. But we lucked out. I remember thinking she was smaller than her picture let on…

Charlie’s first week was focused on getting her situated and helping her trust. It took four baths to get her completely clean. In the process we discovered that she doesn’t shed. BONUS! She also checked out completely healthy at the vet office. Can I mention that the people at Mt. Scott Animal Clinic are amazing? One thing we discovered after a day or two is that she suffers from urinary incontinence, which isn’t uncommon in older female dogs. That accounted for some of her discomfort during the part of the week, but thanks to some inexpensive medication she’s dry as a desert rock. And we can tell that she’s happier for it.

And now for the trust part… The kind (and truthful) folks at Family Dogs New Life warned Jed and me that Charlie had a history of food and toy guarding. At their office we were able to induce some of her guarding behavior, and we felt like it was something we could work with her on. During week 1 breakfast and lunch were presented to Charlie in small, hand-held increments. We kept toys away from her until we established that we were the bosses and givers of all things delicious and nourishing. Now we can reach into her filled dish and grab kibbles while she wags her tail and munches around our fingers.

As far as toys are concerned, the progress is slower because Charlie doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of interest in playing right now. When a local intuitive animal communicator, Bridget Pilloud (@petsaretalking), talked with Charlie she discovered that grief over what Charlie perceived as the death of a previous owner causes Charlie to crave peace and quiet. Bridget assured us that if we give Charlie space and not overwhelm her with attention she’ll be a whole different pup in about three months. Fair enough. In the meantime, rather than push Charlie to play I’ve been stuffing cookies into a Kong and letting her kick it around as she pleases. She’s smart enough to know that if she bites the Kong hard enough the cookie will break and the pieces will fall out. It took her about 10 minutes to figure that out.

And that leads me to Charlie’s intelligence. She already knows Jed and me by name and has learned to “wait”, which is useful at crosswalks (someone else taught her “sit” “stay” and “down”). One downside of her smarts is the fact that she is very reactive when we show stress or speak in anger about work, etc. Charlie also likes to be dominant, which can scare other pet owners. We are meeting with a trainer to help us teach Charlie not to push other pups around. And teach Jed and I a thing or two as well.

So what about the cat, you ask? He’s not coming. It has nothing to do with Charlie, since she came along after I made the choice to leave Jeremy where he is. Here’s the short version:

Since moving to the CyanPDX on May 9th we’ve been thinking hard about a pet, but Jeremy (see previous post) is too happy and comfortable with my parents to steal away. The day that I called Mom to make the final decision with regard to Jeremy was a tough one. I love that cat. He’s huge and grouchy and not affectionate, but that doesn’t really matter. What does matter, though, was the fact that he would be lonely in our apartment and cut off from the outdoors. With Mom and Dad he has a yard and someone to keep company (Mom’s a domestic goddess, you see) all day every day. The choice was a no-brainer.

Now we have ourselves a happy ending. Charlie gets a second chance and Jeremy gets to live out his life in small town Pennsylvania. We can’t always pick the easy choice. I think the tough ones are the most rewarding, though.

For about a month, I’ve been working with a team of folks on a super sekrit project. Tonight, we are having a coming out party on Strange Love Live. Tune in at 10:00pm PDT to find out more…

For those of you who read yesterday’s “famous” post, I hope you understand that I wasn’t downplaying others’ contributions to The Article. Tooting my own horn (and conversely making fun of myself) is a right I reserve on this here blog. But, let me take a moment to congratulate everyone who is making the CyanPDX a great example of the power of social media marketing (here’s lookin’ at you, Justin Kistner and Ian Johnson).

Let me state the obvious: Great article, huh? Laura Oppenheimer is an impressive note-taker and listener. I’m so happy with how she represented what Jed and I had to say. In years past I’ve been interviewed by the media, and the resulting write-ups were disheartening because my words had been bent. I’ll never forget when a paper in Anderson, South Carolina took my “female empowerment” statement and turned it into “Girl Power”. Thinking about that still makes me involuntarily roll my eyes.

Anyway, thanks, Laura. And thanks, Kiernan, for arranging the interview.

Keep an eye out for the Sunday edition of The Oregonian! Unless something crazy happens in the business world today, the front page of the Business section should feature a story about my and Jed’s soon-to-be-new abode, CyanPDX. We were interviewed for the story, so you know the article will be SO compelling. No photos of us though, which is good because I’m badly in need of root touch-up.

I won’t take up a whole lot of space with details about the building itself, the state of Portland’s housing market, or the importance of walking the eco-friendly talk. Laura Oppenheimer will do a better job of that in her article. BUT! I’ll show you what I’ve been up to in my free time since putting down a deposit on our new abode:

I used a downloaded PDF and GIMP to play with the new apartment’s floor plan. It was fun, but it wasn’t as easy as it could of been had I used Skitch. Sure, GIMP is a fantastic open source photo editing software, but what I did above wasn’t exactly heavyweight stuff. After you watch this video, you’ll see what I mean:

Sold? Maybe in the coming weeks we’ll have a Super Skitcher contest or something…

My friend, Ben Friedle (@fart4art), is having his first art show on Wednesday, March 4th.

It’s a big deal. Here’s why:

Ben has been painting for years. One of the first paintings he ever did, titled “Ugly Fish”, has hung above my and Jed’s bed ever since the very beginning of our relationship. When I first saw the little monstrosity I knew this guy had something. But, it’s taken like, A DECADE for someone to finally convince him to display his works publicly. Sidenote: When I told Ben that I liked his painting, he was flabbergasted and told me to throw it away. He’s that humble.

Also, Ben isn’t the kind of artist who sits around and waits for the ideas to come to him. He goes out and finds them. Ben and his wife, Christina, use the public library more than anyone I know. They check out all sorts of media: Music albums, movies nobody has ever heard of, books about textiles and books about art and books about places and books about about about… Then they gobble it all up and take it all back and bring home even MORE music and movies and books. These people are like ShamWows for knowledge. What I’m getting at here is that Ben Friedle’s paintings have meaning that has been sought, processed, planned, and painstakingly interwoven into every brush stroke.

So finally it is happening: The Opening. I encourage you to come and see the gorgeous paintings and meet the person behind it all. And meet his amazing and vibrant wife, Christina. And his insane friends, who are too numerous to name. Fun will be had, songs will inevitably be sung, and you’ll be one of the first witnesses to an event that has been a long time in coming. Bring your wallet, too, because you’re going to want to take one of the pieces home with you.

Where:
La Merde Lounge – 301 SE Morrison St.
Portland, Oregon – Get Directions

When:
Wednesday, March 4th 2009  7pm – 10pm

More:
Fart4Art.com
MontagePortland.com
Upcoming.org